For targeted manipulation of a laser beam, scanner devices typically have two mirrors by which the incident laser beam is deflected and manipulated first by pivoting the first mirror about a first axis and subsequently by pivoting the other second mirror about a second axis. To pivot the mirrors, there is provided in each case a drive motor which, together with the mirror, forms a motor-mirror unit. The laser beams influenced by the scanner device are typically collimated before entering the scanner device and, after leaving the scanner device, are focused by a scanner objective lens (for example, an F-theta objective lens) that is arranged on the scanner device.
Industrial laser material processing typically nowadays requires not only precise orientation or deflection of a laser beam that remains consistent in terms of structure and intensity. Instead, a large number of different laser types that vary in terms of their beam parameters are used. There are produced, by a combination of different collimation and objective focal lengths, a large number of imaging relationships that lead to different beam diameters. To comply with the differing requirements on the beam diameters, different scanner devices are commercially available and are each adapted structurally to the corresponding laser beam diameters (apertures).
If laser beams with small diameters are intended to be deflected, correspondingly small mirrors are used and the mirror axes thereof are arranged with small spacing with respect to each other. In order to deflect laser beams with larger diameters, comparatively large mirrors have to be used and the mirror axes thereof have to be arranged further apart from each other so that the large mirrors do not collide during pivoting. As a result of this change of the beam paths or the beam geometries (i.e., as a result of the arrangement of mirrors of different sizes with different spacings from each other), it is possible to make use of the advantage of improved dynamics of the small deflection mirrors. These mirrors are particularly suitable for particularly rapid and precise manipulation since they are less inert compared to larger mirrors and consequently can be pivoted and positioned more rapidly and more precisely about the axes thereof. The above-described relative spatial beam displacement and the different arrangement of different mirrors require structural adaptation of the scanner device.
To this end, known scanner devices are commercially available in which for each laser beam diameter an aperture-specific mounting plate is introduced and mounted. Motor-mirror units are directly secured to these different mounting plates typically before the mounting plate is introduced into the scanner device, depending on the desired laser beam diameter. The respective mounting plates are geometrically formed in such a manner that, together with the secured motor-mirror units, there is produced the desired spatial arrangement of the mirrors or the mirror axes which is required for the deflection of the laser beam with the corresponding laser beam diameter. For each laser beam diameter, another mounting plate is consequently necessary. The known mounting plates are, however, components that are comparatively heavy and that can be produced only with a relatively high level of complexity (for example, by means of a casting method and precision milling). They must further, in addition to the different motor-mirror units, be kept in a state of readiness which involves additional complexity. The known replacement of both the mounting plates and the motor-mirror units is consequently an expensive and complex system both with respect to the required components and with respect to the handling.